That Sony is a company known for its rather... Unfortunate stance towards DRM and copyright infringement should come as no surprise to anyone, after they more or less crippled the MiniDisc format with DRM, installed rootkits on users' machines, and started removing features from the PlayStation 3. That last one doesn't seem to end well: George Hotz, the famous iPhone hacker and the first to crack the PS3's security, has vowed to bring Linux support back to the PS3.

The thing is they are disabling features on your PS3 not on their servers. And they are doing it by "forcing" firmware update, because if you don't update your PS3 firmware you won't be able to use on-line services.